This week kicked off with Zone Conference up in Prishtina.
President Weidmann gave us some great training on talking to everyone and
passing out cards to people, so that should help with our finding a lot! My
favorite part was one of the members in Prishtina shared his testimony of how
he found this church. He found the missionaries, but wasn't interested for a
long time, and only came to church for the ping pong table that they have at
the church. After months, he decided he wanted to start taking lessons with the
missionaries. He wasn't really going anywhere after a lot of lessons, and he
ended up dropping the missionaries. That night, he read several chapters from
the Book of Mormon, and prayed the whole night. After pursuing that course the
whole night, he called the missionaries and told them he wanted to be baptized.
He was baptized a few days later. After his baptism, he was faced with the
trial of telling his parents that he converted from Islam to Christianity. He
told them, and his parents rejected him after finding out. He started to cry in
his room. Then, he decided to pray again, and almost instantly, he felt the
peace of knowing he was doing the right thing by becoming a Christian. And now,
he's one of the strongest members in the branch there! It's ridiculous how much
some people have to give up to be members of this church, and it helps me
realize I'm not really giving up a whole lot at all!
There have been a lot of peaceful protests around in Skopje
against the current government, which always makes things more fun (sarcasm!).
Last Saturday, in Kumanovo, a city 15 miles from Skopje where Sasho is from,
there was a rebel attack where 22 people died including 8 police. The whole
place was in lock down, but the situation has calmed down now. Then the local
ethnic Albanians heard reports of government corruption, spying and not treating
them fairly, thus they are protesting. We are OK, when things get to heated, we
missionaries stay home. Ethnic Albanians make up about one quarter of Macedonia’s
population.
We found out a new sister was called to Macedonia! Her name
is Sister Dow I think, and she should be here in September. We did not see that
coming, but it's way exciting! I think Sister Hassell and Barch are a bit more
excited than the rest of us though haha. Speaking of which, this Friday was
Sister Riddle's birthday! We always find her alone near the center having lost
her companions, so Elder Gierisch and I decided to get her a leash so she can
make sure they don't wander off.
Farewell Elder Krajnc! He left us on Sunday. He's my first
companion that I've had to go home...it doesn't really feel like he's gone yet.
He was such a beast of a guy, we're all going to be suffering here without him.
We still don't know what we're going to do without our Slovenian :(
I said "No we're Mormons," and they had no idea
who we were. So I started explaining, and they cut me off and started going off
on me. We could hardly understand what they were saying, and after listening
for a bit, Prend jumped at an opportunity. Prend was Muslim, and then Catholic
before he became Mormon, so he had a bit of ground on both of these guys. Prend
talked to them very sternly and with power, but in a kind way, unlike the way
they were talking to us. He ended up getting the guys to walk off, we had
the lesson, and then we went our separate ways. The next day we got a text from
Prend, with the name and number of the Christian guy, saying he wanted to meet
up and listen to our message. Prend is seriously a wizard, I love that guy!
My favorite part of the week though definitely had to be
getting to skype with the family this week in Tucson and Las Vegas! There's
definitely nothing better as a missionary :) Love you guys! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY. Elder Rigby
